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If you want to be disgusted at people who think having money means they can do whatever the fuck they want, read this:

While there’s some bits that are funny [mainly his diarrhoea episode on a private plane filled with clients] the rest of it just makes you feel a bit sick.

What makes it worse is the author is proud of it. Yes, proud.

I wish I could say it’s all a work of fiction [and it appears some of it is] but my 18 months living in Hong Kong exposed me to a lot of these assholes.

Fortunately our apartment was in Happy Valley so I didn’t have to see them in my everyday environment but if I had a meeting in some big hotel or found myself somewhere in Wanchi, there they would be … loud, arrogant and acting like they owned the place.

Sadly, Asia tolerates this.

Especially from white guys.

Or should I say, rich white guys.

What’s tragic is some people will read this book and think, “that life sounds awesome”.

I remember reading an interview with Michael Douglas where he said he was inundated with people saying how much they wanted to be like his character in the movie ‘Wall Street’ and he kept reminding them he was a bad guy.

But in this World of wannabe-entitlement, people seem to miss this point and just see the lifestyle of indulgent excess.

It still blows my mind that it’s only a few years ago that this industry destroyed the livelihoods of millions of people, cities and governments by selling them promises they had no intention of fulfilling and yet they are still walking around like nothing happened.

What makes the whole thing kind-of worse is that as much as we like to think of these people as the devil, they actually look like this:

Yep, that’s the author .. the guy who celebrates his life of depravity and lies.

Looks boringly normal doesn’t he?

Like most serial killers do.

Which makes sense when you think how both have such a disregard for others lives.

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I’ve recently read this book as I enjoyed the way he mocked the people who worked in the financial industry via his Goldman Sachs elevator tweets. Having read the book, I now realise that he wasn’t mocking but revering their arrogant, self focused attitude. I would like to doubt some of what he has written is for dramatic effect but I don’t know if it is true. What is true is this whole industry has no desire to help anyone other than themselves and governments lack of regulation just highlights the dual serving relationship between them. This book sickened me as did the author.

There was some research that showed graduates from American universities still aspired to work in the financial field because “even though they have contributed to global economic loss, they still made a fortune”. I accept they are ignoring the tens of thousands who lost their job at the financial firms, but the fact they choose to ignore it and focus on the wealth, regardless of outcome, doesn’t bode well for anyone’s future.

People have always gone into finance to make money. There’s really no other reason to do it. It’s not inherently interesting. It’s just high margin sales. In the merchant banking days, it was a more of a closed shop than it is now, though obviously not that much more.

Millions work in a job they find uninteresting to make money. But it is how the money men make money that offends me. Self interest, arrogance and a flagrant disregard for the needs of those they represent or I should say the small investors they represent.

Yes, he’s a horrible piece of work and you definitely feel he enjoyed his lifestyle, even though there are moments where he tries to downplay it. And fails. I read another book recently on a similar sort of person [Mark Yagalla] who tries desperately to chastise his old ways despite both celebrating them and blaming everyone else for them.

I am quite certain I would be disgusted at the shenanigans the author promotes in his book. But they continue to get away with it. That speaks volumes for how little they care or how the public believe they have no power to change it.